In my last article I highlighted some of the trouble with Round Robin
tournaments. I have many ideas to spice up chess and to make the game more
exciting and fair, however I am also aware that the chess community is opposed
to change, so I am going to propose a solution that I believe works quite well
and won't ruffle too many feathers.

To sum up my last article, the two main
problems with the Round Robin format are:

1. The Round Robin encourages cheating by
often having a final round pairing that involves people who are in contention
for the championship being paired with people completely out of contention.

2. The Round Robin is also extremely
unfriendly for the media, because in the final round the leaders aren't playing
each other.Now a simple system that looks like it would
solve the above problems would be the Swiss system. Unfortunately in smaller
fields, most of the top players in the Swiss system have played before the
final round, and so you often end up with a lot of strange pairings and other
weird problems.

My solution is as follows:Round Robin +
Swiss:The way to make
Round Robins much more interesting, is to hold a regular round robin to start,
and then follow it up with a two-round Swiss system at the end of the
tournament. The scores from the Round Robin would carry over, and you would
have a seamless transition into the second stage of the event, guaranteeing
that leaders face off in later rounds. Benefits:

1.Creates an Exciting FinishIn the last two rounds, the leader of
the event will likely have to face the two players who are closest to him on
the crosstable, resulting in a much more interesting finish. The situation
where one player is a point behind, or a half point behind, would occur quite
often in the final round. Also there will be more situations with many players
in the running, all facing off against each other. Let's take one of my
favorite international tournaments, the London Chess Classic. Last year I visited and wrote an article about the event for
Chess Life Magazine.
Going into the final round Magnus Carlsen was tied for the lead
with Anand and McShane (using soccer scoring with three points for a win and
one for a draw)in the final round. Anand played Vladimir Kramnik, who was
behind by a point. Meanwhile Carlsen faced the tournament's basement resident,
Nigel Short who had only scored two draws and McShane faced David Howell, who
had clinched second to last. Magnus won and McShane and Kramnik both drew. Seemed unfortunate it to me that the leaders play the tail-enders at the end of the tournament. Using my system, there would be two
more rounds. Magnus would have had to replay Anand in the penultimate round,
with McShane facing Kramnik or Nakamura, mounting the tension prior to the
conclusion.2.Scores Carry Over:A
similar idea would be to have a match between the leaders at the end of a Round
Robin. However, this idea doesn't work as well as the one I proposed because
carrying over points doesn't work as gracefully. If you do carry over points,
the match could be pointless. If you start the match afresh, if one of the finalists dominated the Round Robin (i.e- they finished a point or two ahead of the 2nd finalist), it would be unfortunate if they ended up losing in a tiebreak. In my
system, even if someone is leading by two points, there will still be other
interesting games throughout the event. Furthermore, all the other players in the event are still competing, which can make the event more fun for organizers, fans and media. 3. Prevents
Cheating This system would also help curb collusion because the chances are much lower that incentives will be
imbalanced. It reduces the effect and power of last round cheating deciding the
championship, because for the most part the people in contention are going to
be facing each other. However it won't completely reduce this effect. The USCF
rules state that prearranging a draw is cheating. I think that two players who
do not try their hardest to win a chess game is in a gray area and should be
considered something very close to cheating or angle-shooting, as we call it in
poker. Trouble-Shooting1. It could
add two days at the end of the tournament. However, tournament organizers could
make field sizes smaller to compensate for this.

2. There is still a
chance of two players being tied for first going into the last round, and
playing a relatively lame final round draw.

3. Another downside
might be said to be that the two leaders will probably play in the first round
of the Swiss instead of the second, but this could actually have some upside.
For example if two people are a point ahead of the field, and they draw in the
penultimate round, they are sure to be facing opponents who will be out for
blood in the final round, thus resulting in fighting chess all around. Actually
the most annoying circumstance would likely be if two players are tied for
first going into the last round, since there is often not a serious incentive to win clear first in such spots. Overall I think that this solution will result
in a much more interesting final two rounds, while also resulting in a pretty
even playing field for all the players involved. It's unlikely that anyone is
going to win the event by playing a significantly weaker field than their
opponents, as there will only be two rounds in which they face different
players. I have more drastic tourney format ideas that
I think would work well depending on field size and budget. I think this one is
a great twist and improvement to a format I never loved, the old-fashioned but
ever popular Round Robin.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Who will
be the first to try this system, a classic round robin with a Swiss twist?